Lawrence Hall
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https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com


              So, Newsreaders on National Public Radio, So, Like

Dear NPR Newsreaders:

You don’t have to begin most stories with “So”
Nor the rest of the reports with “So, like”
You could begin with a useful noun, you know
And speak professionally into that open mike

The radio clicks the worn out song
of days gone by and governments gone wrong.
Its static, the rolling of clouds before a thunderstorm.
The newsreaders rustling papers,
High pressure systems on the move.
The hush of the people as they gather to listen
Breath bated, held back by obedient tongues
The bulletins are nicotine bullets,
they're so incredibly easy to get hooked on.
News comes down the wire like commuters on the tube
Jostled and shunted along.
Through underground networks it spreads
With absolute efficiency
And yet the platform on which it departs is more than often wrong.
Outside the park swings are empty,
There is nothing unusual about that
But the kids sit by speakers with their hands over their ears
The high frequency waves dance around them.
This day is marked down as one they wish they could forget.
The headlines blazed into their minds,
More dead.
Oppressed.
Injustice.
Religion.
Elections.
Disasters.
Tornadoes.
Politicians flustered.
Corruption.
Famine.
And Hollywood Blockbusters.
And now we move on to the traffic
Two hundred more just come in from Pakistan
They say there's a pile up in Europe
There's an awful lot of wreckage on the road
and now they are left with no place to call home.
The M1 is running slow again, no surprise in that
Row after row of red brake lights
Join them together to make constellations
And you have your very own metropolitan galaxy.
Because who needs the stars when we have brake lights!
And who needs the moon when we have Big Ben.
Down the telephone lines comes a battalion of lies
“Honey... I'm going to have to work late.'
If you listen very closely to the nine o'clock news
You can hear the reporters wristwatch
And every five seconds that tick on top of his pulse
Marks another slice of news coming in.
The little hand chases the big hand
You cannot tell the time with just one.
The details escape somewhere between
The real world and what's put down in papers.
The trouble with black and white
Is that you miss all the shades of grey
And if you've never seen stars
Then brake lights, are just brake lights
And disaster is just another day.

only days have past since the end of the most
depressing period in the year:
in terms of music...

i welcome January as that month where i can return
to music, to serious music...
if it weren't for some of the songs
i will cite: i would find even more allure
in the Adhan...

but thank god or the devil for the month
of carol singing is over!
the month of carol singing is over!
the "god" has been born - we'll see him
in 33 years to come -
and with his birth the carol singing
can finally be silenced...

why oh why do i find christmas such
a melancholic period?
the carol... even if nietzsche found
reading thomas a kempis' imitation
of christ to be a depressive lot in life...
i too have read it...
and thought of the joy i experienced
for week in Taizé (Burgundy)...

Burgundians in France...
the Kashubians in Poland -
or the Silesians...
how seemingly loveless it is to peer
at intra-national entities...
with a dear eye scout for the details...
the germans love to sing!
wasn't it an austrian that came along
with an opera in german when
all the operas where still in Italian?
to be honest...
it sounds much worse in England...
i favor Händel... greatly...

john suchet can have his Beethoven ****...
his 52 week long saturday 9pm
1h show dedicated to the deaf dunk'e...
i quiet like the backdrop of Händel's
life... the composition for the fireworks
on the Thames... Charles II in general...
point being:
the carol season is over...
i can return to what keeps me well met
with countering any hunger for
new music, even from the genres
i'd appreciate more...

there's no: last christmas - wham!
all i want for christmas - mariah carey...
fairytale of new york - the pogues...
merry christmas everyone - shaky stevens...
the usual suspects...

all that singing for a stone's worth
of a sad little heart...

give me the songs of anon.!
llibre vermell of montserrat - stella splendens!
cuncti simus!
carmina burana - bonum est confidere...
minnesang - neidhart - meine die liechter schin...
refenbogen - gott vater sparch zu abraham...
hugo von montfort - fro weit
konrad von würzburg - hofton...
wolkenstein - wer ist, die da durchleuchtet...
german 15th century anon. - ich var dohin...
ditto - mit vrouden quam der engel...
neidhart von reuental - sumer deiner suzzen wunne...

and the last can go on...
which i find an alternative to classical when...
when jazz becomes too congesting...
there is always an alternative...
and classical music doesn't have to be:
the ultimate counter to modern music...
even if jazz helps...
there is an alternative to what's being
pushed among former newsreaders
who have become "d.j."-'ey-'eys...

how naive of my to have the following thought:
if german was to somehow disappear
from the face of the earth by a lightning bolt
and become a lake of tears...

would i borrow anything from
the 20th century - the anglophonic victory
and subsequent gloating?
or perhaps just a songs from
the medieval period -

and even if the medieval period was
as glum and ignorant as modern rubrics
of science demand -
a scientific can't leverage a joy -
with such certainty of knowing -
with so much certainty -
with weather forecasts...
i demand myself to not watch the forecasts
and beckon my moods on the weather
and the weather on my moods...
if there's anything organic to be retained
with regards to weather -
if i were a farmer perhaps i'd listen
to the annual forecast...
but on a day-to-day basis?
why rob myself of this last desire for
a surprise?
why be robbed of the organic sensation
bound to air, to the electricity
tickling the skin when a thunderstorm...
then there's a deluge and the frogs start
speaking in a crescendo of their
curriculum of barrage and referendum:
and simply fall with
the cats and dogs and reprimand
the man who bodly goes into down...
a man who takes an umbrella with him
out of his residence...
and never will never buy an umbrella
on the whim... being surprised...
what joy when all you buy is predictable...
when all you buy is... an addiction focus...
to feel any better:
how can one feel any better buying
an umbrella spotaneously?!
what greater joy comes from buying
an umbrella when it unexpectedly starts
raining!
and what of the joy of running barefoot
in the rain! what of the joy still harvesting
our eyes our ears our nostrils!
has science really served up the right sort
of an anaesthetic?!
that we are incubated by pure mind...
pure reason and all the trivia crescendos
any mind will want to warrant further...
when not a single ounce of joy in song
can be captured?
intellectual complexity of song:
progressive rock and hyper-inflated pop...
classical music you will never be able
to whistle to... will never be able to take up
with a guitar and play the skeleton...

perhaps edvard grieg's:
in the hall of the mountain king...
but only perhaps!
play me the skeleton accent of any piece
of classical music! from 'ear alone:
this... but the rest? hardly a whisper,
a whimper a whistling pete the piper would
have minded in inducing hyponosis on
the rats...
that whriling crescendo...
the bombast pandemonium reaching
******... the cloud of bats and satans descend...

who cares if peter sutcliffe wants his ashes
to be scattered in yorkshire...
my bigger pet peeve was that he wanted
the cremantion to have....
saint-saëns - danse macabre
to be playing in the background...
yes... for all it's worth: the shrill violin...
the: scratching of nails on a blackboard...
the running of a fork or a knife
on a piece of ceramic plating...

also of note regarding today:
- vierschanzentournee -
outside of the english-speaking world...
there's much more than merely
an Eddie 'the eagle' edwards biopic...
come on!
a world darts championship?!
darts?! the pub go to thing if there's
no pool table?!
that's gonna be an olympic sport?
so what's so terrible about ski jumping?
or the biathlon?
or indoor volleyball for that matter?
the english and their cricket (ok...
i concede to the genius of the sport)...
but lawn bowls?!
what's wrong with... nip'n'tuc pin bowling?
curling... that's also a serious sport?!
tennis versus ping-pong...
which is like throwing darts...
and those demigods at the olympics
with the very recent south korean women
in that sport of archery!
darts and archery... savvy? Lu Bu... Jumong...
never mind... a fellow "countryman"
of "mine" might win this tournament this year...
a дaвид кубaЦки... why would i upper-case
the kappa or the delta...
when the letter of curiosity is the... Ц "ts" C?

- liverpool's second team with the help
of Gomez... Origi... Lallana managed to beat
the first team of Everton...
boys vs. men... 18 year olds etc.

- i finally perfected oven cooking
butterfly chicken *******...
temp. at rest? circa 165° farhenheit...
circa 30minutes at 200°C...
the roast tatties looking pretty and smiling
at me with that roastie brown...
etc. etc. - but the juice on those butterfly
*******?
who would have thought that
stuffing the ******* with the skin still intact...
in between the skin and the meat...
a healthy nugget of butter either side...
fresh thyme...
au provence sea-salt (rosemary,
thyme etc.)...
succulent enough to make you forget ever
wetting your appetite for
a chicken thigh... or a drumstick...

- and finally getting what i want...
the mirror vanity project of:
not needing a turkish barber to trim my beard...
finally! i'll admit...
whenever in a barber shop and sitting
in front of a mirror...
i always close my eyes
and let the barber do his work while
i relax...
perhaps the presence of two bodies
in focus on a canvas of mirror is...
well it's not exactly a third party detail...
the subjective experience is beyond
the necessity of being captivating...
i can't focus on my face since
i don't have any compliments for it...
and a barber working his way around
the excess hair that i should,
technically, tend to myself...
i never liked being pampered by
feminine men...
although: a barber can become...
and butcher the whole thing...
then again: feminine men?
the men who cook, are... feminine?
perhaps they're not engineers...
they are not metallurgists...
but... a **** good shave...
a **** good meal, cooked to perfection...
they're no more feminine than
the other definition: the men of aesthetics...

today i became a man of aesthetics with
regards to: how i want my beard trimmed...
i became the gardeners of my own
garden of chin neck and cheeks...
side-burns in tow...
and the evil 'tash...
slim on the sides...
and a bulging uvula of hair dangling from
the chin and its vicinity...
the evil 'tash trimmed so i can sip
some god's blood / ms. amber:
forget god's **** and all that's beer and cider...
fake it making to sit hunched until 1am...
push this over the "finish-line" and
say adios today!

perhaps i once "glorified" laying out a tier
of "help" of the 3Ps...
the priest, the psychiatrist, the *******...
of the last?
well... imagine wandering the labyrinth
of the english outer-suburbia for long
enough... fiddling with bricks
with the tips of your fingers until
either rust or diamonds spark of the scratching...
i would do ever so often...
stroke bricks, harshly...
go up to the oak and fiddle with its coarse
bark etchings...
a week would pass and i would
have my fingertips readied
to bring before me an example
of human flesh...
was it was tender as ******* an oyster?

i needed to revive a compensation
of sensation...

i once made myself visit the barber
after a long repose...
did i find the barbershop experience
more: rivetting... than any experience
bound to a brothel?

england: prostitution is legal!
but owning a brothel... isn't...
if in amsterdam i was given both the freedom
to seek the advice of a *******
and... smoke marijuana freely...
this paranoia-shadow of smoking it in england
would... simply fizzle out...
i wouldn't be some obnoxious ****
trying to get my rocks off with the "gateway drug"...

why did i smoke marijuana?
i simply "don't know"... but of course i do!
it gave me an escape from
being congested with parrot narratives
of the cartesian RES COGITANS...
i experienced...
the most unbelievable due of:
RES VANUS... the empty thing...
no more thinking than if i were dead...
tightrope spectacular...
it would seem that nothing bothered me...
there were no petty social rubrics to be cited
or be bungled into: the sire of sight
before me: and a bending crux knee...

but there came a time when
going to a barber was... so much more than
going to a brothel...
of course: you can't appreciate the one
without the other in making the statement that...
the latter overpowers the former...
nothing of my grew that would have
to be trimmed and tended to...
i wasn't magically circumcised in
a brothel via oral *** to allow me to
enjoy *** more...
and since i can't be circumcised:
this caduceus of protruding veins entwining...
and since ******* is...
at best the closest i come to satisfaction...
and all else is: pretending and...
ensuring the other party is satisfied...

no wonder i would allow myself to showcase
all the possibilities...
before having to retract and state...
petting a cat... getting a haircut and having
my beard trimmed...
but since i can trim my beard...
and if i need a haircut...
i'll be satisfied with the Auschwitz
syphilis crew-cut...
so be it...

barbershop... how can these men sit
and stare at themselves...
it's different when you're doing it solo...
but i rather see the vampire
and nothing before the mirror otherwise...
i would love to see myself: "myself"
on the canvas: 'fairest of them all'
in the snow-white fable mirror...
otherwise there's me looking more
like a ******* over-inflated
pupernickle... pumpernickle that uses yeast...
and this bloated ****-head's face...

but also this barber: this harlequin...
i wouldn't mind sitting before a mirror
in a barber shop... if i could also see
this barber-harlequin doing his aesthetic trimming
on an empty space...
so i tended to close my eyes...
while in the brothel my eyes were also open...
this whole: milan kundera debate
about those who **** with their eyes
open and those who **** with their eyes closed...

still... going to a barber was more
than getting a *******...
she... and i just imagined getting
indigestion from binging on gulping down
raw oysters...
and how many oysters would it take
for her **** to be turned into the taj mahal...

come to think of it...
what is best taken from this spew of words?
no rhyme, no meter...
well... there's that umbrella spontaneity...
isn't there?! that ought to be kept...
in spirit of the times when too much
is made predictable...
when predictabilty is certainly least
warranted...

will there be: the evil of my ways?
oh sure sure... walk into a brothel...
see the Nazgûl waiting in the ante-chamber...
and you ask one of them: which one of you?
and this other replies: that is against the rules...
you have to chose...
******* strapped on... then pulled back...
imitation ***** and: evidently
******* ******* is a bit like ****** *******
in movies...
and you do...
but in the back of your mind...
you have: Solomon and his prayer being answered...
his "wisdom"...
and of course the harem...
and then you have David...
prayer or no prayer... sure-as-**** no prayer
when it came to killing Goliath...
and... David's harem of psalms!

but i'm pretty sure that circumcision should
be... something requiring a man's
permission... baptism shma-anabaptism...
abracadabra-water trickle blah blah *******...
that i can survive...

there's still this 15th century german music to mind!
which goes outside of current,
appreciation of escapist music...
shawshank redemption: mozart...
or jazzy jazzy bleu ooh blue...
there's medieval folk...
there's old christian music that's outside of...
and in the measure of retaining:
the Cramp... the Krampfmuschi...
not this ******* coral singing...
no wonder i'm always depressed...
i'm always depressed when they start to coral...
what sort of achievement is merely being born?!
oh... right... when you have an a posteriori
light ahead of you...
when you don't commit suicide...
instead you decide: nothing more fitting
than a public spectacle...
i will not hang myself in "private"...
i will make sure that my psychological agony
of those around that have instigated it...
will need a spectacle!

carol singing out of my own ***...
he might have survived... i don't doubt it...
in all the icons...
the nails were nailed...
not at the wrists...
not in the tarsus talus region...
if they nailed him by the wrists?
and the tarsus talus (leg foot wrist circa)...
oh yeah! he'd be walking! third day!
but if you have a hole in your:
just above the metacarbal digits?
and how modern t.v. portrays crucifixion?
that... he wouldn't be hanging by nails alone...
that his arms would also be tied with
rope?!
what's next ******* spectacular was
to be awaited?!

whatever the clues:
i have a night to catch...
a night that's deserving of my sleep...
and tomorrow...
will be: tomorrow.

whoever it is that chooses the 'news'
the TV controllers, the deciders of what's worthy but not necessarily 'new'
the rolling banter of newsreaders on repeat

whoever it is who gives everything their OK
before its screened all over the World

I would suggest have a very strange idea of what's important in the lives of most of those on planet Earth.

What’s on
the news
Today
Everything
Is wonderful
Everything’s
Amazing
I don’t
believe it
Do they
Know what
They are saying.
Newsreaders
High on hope
Me I think
been
Smoking dope.
What’s on
the news
Today
Phone hacking
Car jacking
Bit of Stabbing
Covid jabbing
Immigrants boats
coming ashore
Coverage of ill
fated war.
What’s on
The news
Today
If your like me
Don’t watch
News on TV